:: W.A.S.P. - Babylon

W.A.S.P.

While it wasn’t a genuine classic in the truest sense, W.A.S.P.’s ‘Dominator’ release from 2007 was at the very least a strong release from the long running band, and one that saw vocalist/guitarist/principal songwriter Blackie Lawless cast aside his laboured conceptual ideals of his recent past in favour of a more direct ‘back to basics’ approach to straight-forward rocking songs. Despite spending the better part of the twelve months that followed touring the globe celebrating the twenty-fifth anniversary of 1992’s ‘The Crimson Idol’ alongside touring ‘Dominator’, Lawless and W.A.S.P. have made a quick follow-up to their last studio effort with the release of their fourteenth studio effort ‘Babylon’. With only a couple of years between releases, it’s not surprising to find ‘Babylon’ following a similar direction to that heard on ‘Dominator’, with nine tracks on the album reminiscent the classic W.A.S.P. sound that fans have come to know and love. But while ‘Babylon’ is another strong release from the band, it doesn’t quite reach the heights ‘Dominator’ scaled a mere two years ago. Any band that’s been in the business as long as this Los Angeles based outfit is sure to repeat themselves after a while, and that’s exactly what occurs in the album’s first single/opening track ‘Crazy’. Overall, ‘Crazy’ is a great track, and Lawless sounds as impressive as ever. But for all of the songs great points, it’s hard to shake the familiarity of the song’s main riff, which is essentially a reworking of the band’s classic ‘Wild Child’. Things improve greatly with the fast paced/anthem-like ‘Live To Die Another Day’ and the driving ‘Babylon’s Burning’, both of which are great W.A.S.P. songs and manage to recapture the band’s classic sound. An album full of tracks such as these two would have had many fans hailing the band’s comeback. But as it so happens, the run of great tracks is interrupted with the inclusion of a cover, namely Deep Purple’s classic ‘Burn’. There’s nothing particularly wrong with their version of ‘Burn’, because it does flow well with the previous two efforts. What’s disappointing is that the album only contains nine tracks, and this is just one of the two covers included on the album. The heavy-ballad like ‘Into The Fire’ is typically W.A.S.P. like, and could have easily slotted onto the band’s ‘The Neon God’ efforts without sounding too out of place. Again, a solid song, but nothing spectacular either. Thankfully, the fast paced ‘Thunder Red’, the thundering riff led ‘Seas Of Fire’ and the dramatic ‘Godless Run’ all provide the album with some killer efforts. Unfortunately, the album ends on a bit of a sour note, with the band covering Chuck Berry’s ‘Promised Land’. Again, there’s nothing bad about the band’s version, but it does sound completely out of place on the album, and gives me the impression that Lawless was a little short on original material when it came time to recording the new album. There’s some great songs to be found throughout ‘Babylon’, but sadly not enough of them. The inclusion of the two covers simply don’t do the album justice, and only serve to diminish the strong efforts on offer. Overall, ‘Babylon’ is a good release, but well short of the comeback effort I was expecting after the respectable ‘Dominator’.